


Listen

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8009107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian finds a new target for his aggressive care-taking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen

Frankly, Tim was having a terrible day. He’d broken his wrist a week ago, which meant no patrol, and he’d finished all the work he could do from home. He was going stir-crazy— wandering aimlessly around his apartment, checking and rechecking his equipment. In the end he’d driven to the manor, hoping for something to do, but the house had been empty all night. He’d clicked through Netflix episodes until the early hours of the morning, fallen asleep on the couch, and woken up exhausted.

At least Dick wasn’t doing any better. He called to check in while Tim was headed downstairs, complaining about a streak of murders in his neighborhood that he hadn’t been able to solve. Tim put him on speaker when he hit the kitchen, set his phone on the counter, and nodded to Damian, who was already at the table. Damian didn’t look up from his newspaper.

“Drake. You look half-dead.”

“You’ve looked worse.” Tim pulled the pancake mix from the shelf and turned around in time to see Damian slowly lower his paper, clearly scandalized. Tim decided he was too tired to care.

“We need to work on your sense of self preservation,” sighed Dick. “Hey, Damian. Try not to stab anyone.”

“No promises.” Damian glared pointedly in Tim’s direction and went back to his paper.

“Anyway, Tim, listen— I have to go. I’ve been awake for forty hours, and this isn’t getting any easier.”

“Have you considered taking a break?”

“This was my break.” Dick stifled a yawn. “I’ll be fine.”

Tim figured he probably would be, until he saw Damian’s eyes narrow. Uh oh. As Dick clicked off the line, Damian folded up his newspaper and made for the door. Tim followed him into the hallway, grinning. He was pretty sure he knew what was about to happen.

“So what are you going to do to him?”

“Go away, Drake.”

“Slip him sleep meds? Break into his apartment and badger him into submission?”

“Leave.”

“You’re not going to physically fight him, are you?”

“No.” Damian swept inside his bedroom, slamming the door in Tim’s face. “Mind your own business.”

“Damian, c’mon, I just want to know if I have enough time to make popcorn.” No answer. Tim leaned against the doorframe, listening to Damian clatter around inside. “If this is about what I said in the kitchen, I’m sorry about the dead joke.”

Damian’s voice came out muffled behind the wood. “No you’re not.”

Okay, fine. He wasn’t. “Seriously, tell me what you’re planning to do.”

“I’m going to ask him politely to go to sleep.”

“That’s it?” Tim pulled away from the wall, disappointed— and maybe a little irritated. He knew from personal experience that if _he_ went that long without sleeping, Damian started pulling out sedatives. As tired as he was of Damian’s over the top interventions, Tim had always assumed they were over the top because that’s how Damian did things. From the right angle, he was almost being nice. But if he wasn’t going to do it to Dick…

“How come you don’t—” Tim cut himself off as Damian’s door swung open.

“Because Grayson values my opinion and me as a person, so if I ask him to take care of himself, he will. Because Grayson listens to to me.” Damian swung his laptop bag over his shoulder, shot Tim a look that said (very clearly) _unlike_ _some_ _people_ , and marched back up the hall.

“That’s not…” Tim stood for a few seconds, arms crossed, then hurried after Damian. “Okay, that’s not fair. I listen to you. Or at least I would if you ever asked me for anything.”

“I do,” said Damian. “You don’t.”

“Since when?” Tim couldn’t remember ignoring any requests— Damian didn’t talk to him that often, and most of what he did say was insulting. Tim could remember a few comments about his life habits, sure, but no questions. Damian never asked.

Alright, maybe that was Damian’s version of asking.

“Fine.” Tim caught up with Damian at the front door, while he was fishing for his keys. “I’ll pay more attention next time.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “I’m thrilled. Can you drive me to Grayson’s apartment?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Finally, something to do. He’d been lying around for days, and he was starting to feel like dead weight. Useless. Anyway, Tim wanted to see how this played out— Dick was stubborn, and Tim wasn’t sure that he would cooperate as easily as Damian predicted. He was as much of a workaholic as any of them.

“I’ll get my keys.”

Damian pulled out his phone as soon as they got in the car, so they drove the first ten minutes in silence. Tim rested his bad wrist on top of the steering wheel, wondering how much longer Alfred would keep him off the streets. Probably a while. It was only a small break, so maybe if he promised to be careful, he could—

Damian pointed out the window. “There’s a pastry shop on that corner if you want to stop.”

“What?”

“You didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Oh.” He was going to make pancakes. He’d forgotten about that. “I can get something at Dick’s.”

“Fine.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can try.”

“Why do you care?”

“About…?”

“About me missing a meal.” Tim stopped at a red light. “That Dick isn’t sleeping. Stuff like that. It doesn’t seem like you would.”

Damian shrugged. “Someone has to. When you aren’t at your best, you make mistakes. You’ll get yourself killed.”

“So you don’t want me dead.”

“Did I say that? If I’m going to be forced into working with you, I need to know you’re capable of holding down your part. It’s the easiest way to protect myself.”

“I see.”

Damian nodded. “That’s the problem with the rest of you. You’re too busy taking care of everybody else on the planet to make selfish decisions.”

“But not you?”

Damian didn’t look up from his phone. “Not me.”

“Right.”

“Plus you’re an embarrassment, and I genuinely enjoy derailing your plans.”

“There it is.”

Damian clicked off his screen and slid his phone into the pocket of his hoodie. “It makes you predictable, you know. All of you. You’re easy to play.”

“Example?”

“Every time Grayson gets upset, all I have to do is pretend that I need help with something. He helps, he feels useful, he feels better. Green light.”

Tim thought about it as he accelerated past the intersection. “You make up a problem for him to solve?”

“I have never legitimately needed help in my life.”

“Okay,” Tim admitted. “That sounds like it would work on Dick.”

“All of you,” Damian corrected. When Tim glanced over, Damian was looking back at him, one eyebrow raised. At that exact moment Tim remembered that Damian was perfectly capable of driving himself into the city, and that his own mood had dramatically lifted after the request for help. The ball dropped.

“You’re a terrifying human being.”

“Thank you,” said Damian, with possibly the most genuine smile Tim had ever seen on his face.

“Don’t mention it,” he muttered. They pulled into a parking lot, and Tim followed Damian up the flight of steps towards Dick’s apartment, wondering if emotional manipulation was a genetic skill.

Damian didn’t bother knocking— he just pulled out a key and let himself in. As soon as he was inside, he marched into Dick’s kitchen and started rummaging through cabinets, leaving Tim to close the door behind them. Across the room, Dick looked up from his computer screen in confusion.

“Hi?”

“Hello.” Damian found a six-pack of grocery store muffins on one of the shelves and passed it over to Tim. With that sorted, he turned to Dick. “You need to sleep.”

Dick gestured to his laptop, the city map spread over his floor, and the stacks paper on his coffee table. “I’m busy.”

“You’re wasting energy. If you’ve really been awake for that long, the odds of you being coherent enough to solve anything are low.”

“Serial killer,” said Dick, hefting a file. “I can’t really take the chance.”

“Let me see that.” Damian set his bag on the carpet, took the file, and settled into the couch, flipping through pages. “If Drake and I take care of this, will you go to bed?”

“You don’t know the case.”

“Fresh eyes,” Damian countered. “Fresh perspective.”

Tim finished his muffin and dumped the wrapper in Dick’s trash. “I’d listen to him. Trust me, you won’t like what happens if you don’t.”

Dick considered it. “Can you stay that long?”

Tim waved his cast in front of him. “Nowhere to be.”

“You’ll wake me up if something changes?”

“Definitely.”

Dick scribbled a five-digit code on a post-it note and stuck it to Damian’s file. “That’s the laptop password. You two try not to burn down my building, okay?”

“No promises.” Damian looked up from his folder. “I’m joking. Go to bed.”

“You win.” Dick set his phone on the coffee table and walked into to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Easy enough.

“See?” Damian asked. “I told you.” He pulled Dick’s computer into his lap and started clicking through files.

Tim shrugged. “I guess you did.” He knelt next to the map, scanning the locations Dick had circled in red— the murder scenes, presumably. “Where do you want me to start with this?”

“Did you miss the memo? I don’t actually need your help.”

“Sure, Damian.” Tim rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t.”

“I don’t.” Damian pointed to the map. “But if it makes you feel better? There.”

**Author's Note:**

> Damian Wayne is SO full of shit, but I love him, I really do


End file.
